Fuming nitric acid gives a paratrinitro substitution derivative which on reduction gives paraleucaniline; the salt of the carbinol formed on oxidizing this substance is the valuable dye rosaniline.

Considerable interest is attached to the remarkable series of hydrocarbons obtained by Gomberg (Ber., 1900, 33, p. 3150, et seq.) by acting on triphenylmethane chloride (from triphenylmethane carbinol and phosphorus pentachloride, or from carbon tetrachloride and benzene in the presence of aluminium chloride) and its homologues with zinc, silver or mercury.

Regarding methyl alcohol, for which he proposed the name carbinol, as the simplest alcohol, he showed that by replacing one hydrogen atom of the methyl group by an alkyl residue, compounds of the general formula Rï¿½CH 2 ï¿½OH would result.

It is reduced by sodium amalgam to benzhydrol or diphenyl carbinol C 6 H 5 [[Choh C 6 H]] 5; a stronger reducing agent, such as hydriodic acid in the presence of amorphous phosphorus converts it into diphenylmethane (C6H5)2.